In recent years, with diversification of lives, improvement of life level, changes and improvement of attitudes, and the like, attention has been paid to various points around one's life. One of them is existence of various malodors. Main malodorous components include nitrogen compounds such as ammonia, urea, indole, skatole, and amines; sulfur compounds such as methyl mercaptan, hydrogen sulfide, and dimethyl sulfide; and lower fatty acids such as butyric acid. Heretofore, there are a number of reports on deodorants that are used to eliminate or reduce the malodors.
For example, there has been a report of using plant extracts containing various kinds of mixtures of polyphenols as detergents (refer to Patent Document 1). While such detergents show a certain level of deodorizing effect, most of them cannot be said to exhibit a sufficient deodorizing effect and, in this regard, leave a room for improvement.
As a deodorant which improves and solves the problem, it have been reported a deodorant composition comprising, as an effective component, a colored compound obtained by reacting a polyphenol compound in an alkaline solvent under the co-existence of oxygen molecules at a pH value during reaction of 6.5 or more has been reported (Patent Document 2). While the deodorant composition is an excellent deodorant composition capable of maintaining the deodorizing performance even with lapse of a long period of time when it is once prepared and capable of providing an excellent deodorizing effect to malodor component, particularly, to nitrogen-containing compound or sulfur-compound, since the effective ingredient is a colored substance, a problem has been pointed out that it undergoes a certain restriction upon application as a deodorant and cannot easily provide the deodorizing effect in a short period of time when it is applied to the malodor component.
Further, while a technique of preparing a deodorant composition comprising a polyphenol compound and an alkali has been reported (refer to Non-Patent Document 1), it is not intended to provide a deodorizing effect in a short period upon application to a malodor source.                Patent Document 1: JP-A-11-319051        Patent Document 2: JP-A-2004-167218        Non-Patent Document 1: Fragrance Journal No. 12, pages 58 to 59, 1995        